After 2 years on the back burner, News International finally sold their old Wapping site last year for £150million to the Berkeley Group's St George division. St George's have appointed Patel Taylor to carry out local consultations and develop a masterplan for redeveloping the 15 acre site.

It's a massive area bordering a UN World Heritage site and three conservation areas. As well as the 1980's print works and other long abandoned NI buildings there are many Listed dock warehouses on the site situated at the now filled in London Dock.

I imagine the site can support a fair few tall buildings towards the highway and Tobacco Dock but will have to be scaled down towards the southern and western boundaries.

Patel Taylor has been appointed to draw up a masterplan to redevelop the one-time News International site in Wapping - formerly a prized Amanda Levete scheme

The practice will draw up proposals for a residential-led mixed-use developmentfor client St George Central London.

St George, part of the Berkeley Group, bought the 15 acre site from News International in May, drawing the line under Amanda Levete Architects’ consented plans to remodel the main building for the media giant (see AJ 11.11.2009).

Would be nice to see Fortress Wapping razed and the London Dock with its entrance basins excavated and reinstated as bodies of water, perhaps with high rise buildings located on a central widened wharf element akin to Canary Wharf, but unfortunately probably fat chance of anything remotely like that happening.

Used to work here, those low rise old dock buildings used to hold all the archive newspapers

__________________
"The public suddenly saw him in a new light, the two-handed fighter who stormed forward, a flame of pure fire in the ring, strong, native, affable, easy of speech, close to the people in word and deed and feeling."

heh i linked that photo visit in the very first post... There's a large hotel planned to go up next door between Fortress Wapping and Tobacco dock, can't see any threads on here but might be worth lumping it in with this one.

NI moved all its offices into Thomas Moore Square, the tower next door. Most notably used as the fictional headquarters of "Reynholm Industries" in channel four's The IT Crowd.

Details are very sketchy at the moment, but St George have advised local residents that they're planning a 38 storey residential tower on the former News International site at Wapping, which is to be renamed London Dock, together with some other 20 storey buildings.

Never going to happen. The only reason towers are proposed here is there is already permission for a mid-twenty floor tower here and it is the only site where tall buildings will be allowed between here and CW.

This looks hopeful to get a go ahead... the local community is broadly in favour of what St George's have proposed so far. Their public and local consultation regarding their plans has been exceptional given the short time since they took over the News International site. There is already a tall building under construction at 21 Wapping Lane, There's a mid-rise hotel starting construction on the Highway next to Tobacco Dock, which has itself finally been bought and put to use... There are also rumblings of a tall residential being planned for 124 Wapping High Street, though a low-rise redevelopment of the existing building was rejected recently.

What exactly are they doing? I thought they were just a local residents group?

There are two heads- one is a monthly meeting that anyone can attend, which has recently focussed on discussing the News International development- I think that has been going on for a year or so. I have attended two meetings. The second has followed on, and this is where the controversy began, the organisers of the group have put in an application to be a Neighbourhood Planning Forum.

The application needed 21 residents' signatures. Vickie who runs whatsinwapping asked John Bell for the names (more to get an idea of what sort of person was involved rather than the individuals per se). I was one of the signatories and agreed immediately, but to date only two others have been publically named - I don't know if individuals have said they don't want to be named, or just haven't responded.

Because of this, people have become suspicious perceived secretive society and confusion about the two aspects, and compounded by a lack of Network Wapping engagement with users on the What's in Wapping website and the fact that the network wapping website isn't particularly clear about what it does [it contains a lot of blue sky thinking about the local area and possible uses things like tidal power on one of the old docks].

I'm coming to the conclusion that its aspirations will not come to fruition.